


Waif

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [275]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Pre series, Running Away, weird mismatch of different perspectives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: The first word she thinks when she looks at him is waif.





	

The first thing she thinks when she sees the child is _waif_.

Which is ridiculous. He’s not an orphan–his Dad registered him for school and everything. They’re not homeless. She checks, but they have an address listed and it’s not a homeless shelter. Maybe they’re living out of a car or something, and the address is old or just for mail or something, but she doubts it.

The kid–Sam, his name is Sam, and he says it shyly when she introduces herself to him, and then him to the class–doesn’t look entirely unkempt. He’s clean enough, and his clothes are a little stained and threadbare, but nothing she would consider overtly disgusting. 

He just has this look to him. He’s so small with his messy, fly-away hair and worn clothes. Everything about him says _about to fade away_. But mostly, it’s his eyes. They’re so…beaten, and weary, for a kid barely eight years old.

He doesn’t connect well with the other kids. He’s distant and stand-offish. He works hard at academic tasks, but social skills throw him for a loop. He’s polite enough, he’s just not engaging.

She writes it in a report, but he’s gone before anyone has a chance to read it.

* * *

The store clerk eyes the kid wearily. The kid has a wad of crumpled bills, sure, but he looks like the type of kid who drags trouble behind him.

He pushes the bills forward a little more insistently, and the clerk shrugs and finishes processing the transaction. Money is money. Even money fro grubby, dirty kids who look like they don’t exactly eat much.

As soon as the transaction is complete, the kid snatches his purchases–over the counter pain killers, a large coffee, and a loaf of bread–back off the counter and into his arms. The clerk had been just about to offer a bag, but he holds his tongue. Clearly the kid isn’t planning of letting go of his things.

“Have a good day,” he says mechanically.

The kid looks at him, then nods and walks out the door, disappearing fro the clerk’s sight.

He shivers. That was one weird kid. 

* * *

The neighbors spot him a few times.

He’s some kid, clearly homeless, squatting in the old empty place on the corner. He’s dirty, his clothes too big and in messy disarray, his hair too long and too messy.

He has a dog, too. He didn’t have the big mutt at first, but it shows up one day, and from then on, whenever the neighbors catch sight of him, they see boy and dog together.

Some of them call the police, explain about the homeless young man and a dog squatting in what is a perfectly respectable neighborhood. They’re sure he’s underage, all alone. Family services should be called. The dog pound should be called. The police should come and take him away, sort out his problems somewhere else.

Every time the police show up, he’s nowhere to be found. They’ll see him again a few hours later, looking just as cold and hungry and dirty as ever, but the police never do manage to catch sight of him.

* * *

Sam knows how people look at him. How people have always looked at him.

The weird kid, practically homeless, wearing beat-up hand-me-downs. Messy hair he refused to cut, not a lot of normal socializing, some weird look in his eyes. Hungry, sometimes dirty, beat-up and sometimes bloody. Wrong. Unacceptable. Weird.

People aren’t meant to live life like that, not if they can at all avoid it, Sam thinks.

Which is why, he reflects, he needs to get out. 

Yes, technically he’s homeless again. He has exactly thirty-four dollars for food. None of his clothes even approximate nice or new. His social skills haven’t magically developed in the last few hours.

But, he reflects as he switches from one Greyhound bus to the next, now he at least has a chance. He can fix all those things. He can make it so no one ever looks at him and sees that lost, desperate, hurting little kid again.

He hitches the strap of his bag higher and boards the bus. It’s time to make his future.


End file.
